Necessity Can Be A Life Saver

Posted September 28th, 2010 by webadmin

A number of years ago, the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society (CHS) teamed up with Canadian Blood Services (CBS) to get the word out that eligible people with hemochromatosis can donate their blood towards life saving purposes. This partnership made sense; after all, if your body overloads in iron, you need to remove your blood with a phlebotomy and CBS always needs blood!

The Canadian Hemochromatosis Society was made a “Partner for Life”, and encouraged the hemochromatosis community to join CHS in the Partners for Life program as a way to generate more awareness of the disorder and to encourage people to donate their blood at CBS clinics. Not only would individuals be treating their own condition, they could be saving up to three lives with each donation of blood.

There was much excitement over this newly formed partnership, but over time this partnership has waned to such an extent that the latest numbers show a dismal 44 blood donations being made year to date from across Canada through CHS’s Partners for Life registry. Why is there such a low turnout? Maybe people don’t know that they can give their blood to CBS, and perhaps even fewer know about the Partners for Life program.

Over the next year, we will be reinvigorating our partnership with CBS through joint communications and events in an effort to let you all know that having hemochromatosis does not necessarily prevent you from donating blood. In fact, you might even be an excellent candidate for saving lives.

To check your eligibility to donate blood, visit www.blood.ca.

To join CHS in the Partners for Life program, visit our website at www.toomuchiron.ca.